


our love was meant to be (my love came back to me)

by BensCalligraphySet



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Fluff, Light Angst, Post-Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Reincarnation, Soulmates, in which the Force ships it so much it decided to give them another chance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-29
Updated: 2020-04-29
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:35:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23910082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BensCalligraphySet/pseuds/BensCalligraphySet
Summary: There’s a bottle in the water. Inside, there are letters. Dozens of them, dated from years and years ago. The last of the bunch is only a month old. Ben decides to start there.This is the last letter I will send you. You don’t remember me, not in this lifetime, and that’s okay. Perhaps in another life, another universe, we will meet again. I have to believe that.I love you anyway.Always and forever, ReyWhen he turns the page, there’s a name.The letter is addressed to him.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 188
Kudos: 645
Collections: Galactic Idiots Collection





	our love was meant to be (my love came back to me)

**Author's Note:**

> Russian translation by the lovely Aleksandra [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24556543)!

Ben Solo likes living on the beach. He’s always been an early riser, and he treasures the simple pleasure of having his coffee out on the deck while watching the sun rise like it’s the morning news.

He takes a daily walk along the coast. It’s peaceful, this time of year. There are no children or surfers. It’s just him and the sound of the waves lapping up against the shore. To anyone else, it might seem lonely, and he supposed that it is. But Ben carries loneliness the way the ocean carries sand: he lets it sink to the bottom of his soul. Lets it cover everything, good and bad, until all is quiet and still. 

He walks, like every other day, close to the water. His feet leave a trail as he goes, but that, too, will be washed away by the waves. Unlike every other day, he sees something bobbing on the water. It glimmers in the sunlight, like a treasure, and i’s close enough that he can pick it up without getting his jeans wet.

It’s a bottle, clear and nondescript, without any sort of label. Inside, there are papers. Letters, by the looks of it. He can make out some writing, but it’s impossible to decipher without taking them out first.

He looks around, but there’s nobody else on the beach besides him and the seagulls. Someone might have left it behind, or else the water carried it from elsewhere. Either way, the letters seem to be completely dry. The cork did its job of keeping out the water. 

He doesn’t know what the ethics are, exactly. Should he read them? Is it an invasion of privacy? Whomever sent them couldn’t have been too worried about it, since anybody could have found them.

Curiosity wins, and he fishes the letters out of the bottle, rolling them out carefully. There are dozens of them, dated from years and years ago. The last of the bunch is only a month old. For whatever reason, he decides to start there.

It’s short, only a couple of paragraphs and a signature. The handwriting is small and neat. Tiny water stains dot the page, blurring out some of the words. He knows it can’t be seawater. Something in his chest pinches at the thought that it could be tear drops.

_This is the last letter I will send you. You don’t remember me, not in this lifetime, and that’s okay. Perhaps in another life, another universe, we will meet again. I have to believe that._

_I love you anyway._

_Forever and always, Rey_

Ben’s heart stops cold. He feels everything go very still around him, like the world itself has stopped moving. He doesn’t understand what he’s seeing, but there’s a knot in his stomach and bile in his mouth and he falls back on the sand, too dizzy to stand.

Because when he turns it over, there’s a name on the page. 

The letter is addressed to him.

* * *

Ben doesn’t remember much about his life. Not because his memory fails him, but because it’s been profoundly unremarkable. 

He remembers the important parts: his 8th birthday, when he and his dad spent the day building a model ship; his 15th birthday, when he broke his hand punching a wall because his dad had chosen his navy cadets over his son; getting into Princeton and then getting his naval architecture degree; losing his virginity and then losing his family; finding a job designing boats and buying a house close enough to the beach so that the perennial sound of the waves could drown out the silence that has always seemed to permeate his life. 

These are the things he remembers. Everything else is sand and seafoam. 

But there’s always been a name - in the back of his mind, on the tip of his tongue, in the pause between his heartbeats. _Rey_. He doesn’t know what it means, where it came from, but it’s always been there, like a reminder of something he doesn’t remember forgetting. It’s what he named the first boat he ever built. 

_Rey_. 

The name on the page almost seems warm to the touch when Ben runs his fingertips over it. He feels a strange connection to the signature, to the name, to the feeling behind these words that should - that _do_ \- mean nothing to him. And yet, they tug at his heart and make him feel a sense like urgency. Like something fundamentally important is missing from his life. Like he should be out there, looking for this Rey so that he could, at the very least, put his mind at ease and forget about all of this. 

He takes another look around him, hoping whoever left the bottle will regret their decision and come back for it. There’s nothing but the cold, biting wind. 

He sighs, folding the letters and stuffing the bottle in the pocket of his peacoat. There’s a headache steadily building in his temples and a heaviness in his chest as he makes his way home through the dunes. 

Overhead, the seagulls’ cry sounds sorrowful. Ben tucks his chin closer to his chest, and walks on. 

* * *

Sitting on a deck chair with a cup of coffee in hand, Ben goes through the letters. There’s no address. Just her first name. 

They start out hopeful: Rey writes to him - to _some other Ben Solo_ , he reminds himself, because it can’t possibly be him - and tells him about her day, about her life, about her never ending search for him. Most are normal and talk about mundane things; some show the age she must have been when she wrote them; some are sad and melancholy and he knows exactly what she must have been feeling when she wrote them because he felt like that as a teenager. 

A lot of them are downright distressing, because she keeps alluding to this _other life_ she seems convinced to have lived, and she makes it sound like _he,_ like _Ben,_ had lived it with her. 

As the moon slowly chases the sun out of the sky, Ben reads. 

_Tuesday, January 12th 2011_

_Dear Ben,_

_I’ve decided to start writing you letters. I don’t have a forwarding address (I don’t even know where you live!) but I want to be able to remember all the things I want to tell you when we finally meet again._

_I have a family in this life. An adopted family, but a family nonetheless. They’re nice, I suppose. They care. That’s more than I could have hoped for...before. Do you remember much? Do you remember your parents, Chandrila? Do you remember your life as an adult? Do you remember us?_

_I really hope so. That’s what I remember most clearly. Everything else is very hazy. Maybe that’s normal. The only thing I know for sure is that you’re out there, somewhere._

_I have to go. I’m supposed to be helping with the dishes. If I do all my chores, I can win back the internet privileges I lost when I got into a fight at school (it wasn’t my fault, promise!)_

_Forever and always, Rey_

_Saturday, April 4th 2013_

_Dear Ben,_

_I turned 16 today. We had a party, but I only invited my friend Jackie because everyone else at school is a complete tosser. I also invited my neighbour, Ms Grant. She’s eighty-six years old and she likes to embroider swear words onto pillows and napkins. She’s my favourite person (besides you, of course)._

_I’ve been having these dreams lately. About Jakku and Plutt. Sometimes I wake up feeling like I’m choking on sand. It’s really awful. I have to remind myself that I’m not there anymore. We’re not there. There is no Jakku, and no Snoke and no Emperor. I’m glad for that, at least, even if we are a long way from home. I hope you’re not having nightmares, wherever you are. If you ever do, imagine that I’m right there next to you, hugging you until they pass. It’s what I do._

_I wish you’d been at the party. Do you like cake? It’s stupid, but I really hope you do._

_Forever and always, Rey_

Ben puts the letter down and sighs. He feels conflicted. Deep down, he knows he’s breaching her privacy by reading these, but the more he reads, the more he feels like something inside him - something altogether foreign and strange and important - is slowly unlocking. He couldn't stop if he tried. 

_Wednesday, September 3rd 2015_

_Dear Ben,_

_I am writing this on a plane. It’s my first ever flight and it’s a transatlantic trip from London to New York. The scholarship I told you about - I got it. Full ride to Columbia! I’m really happy.This has been a huge dream of mine and I can’t wait to study English and hopefully get some of my stuff published. Have I told you that I’m working on a novel? It’s a surprise._

_I admit a huge part of me is excited over the prospect of moving to New York because I get to look for you there. There are so many possibilities. England is relatively small, and I didn’t feel you there. But I’ve always felt drawn to America in a way I can’t quite explain. It’s like my heart knows something I don’t._

_Jackie asked me if I was scared, if I thought I’d miss home. I almost laughed. I wish I could have told her that I’ve been missing home all my life. Because home is you._

_Wherever you are, I hope you're closer now than you were before._

_Forever and always, Rey._

_Sunday, June 9th 2018_

_Dear Ben,_

_I guess I should preface this by saying I’m a little drunk. And angry._

_Have you been looking for me like I have been looking for you? Do you care? Are you happy and in love with someone else, somewhere in the world?_

_Because I can’t love anybody but you. I tried, when missing you hurt like an open wound. It didn’t work, of course. They’re not you. None of them are you. It’s been so long, Ben. I’m tired._

_I miss you. Please find me._

_Forever and always, Rey._

Ben reads letter after letter, feeling himself sink deeper and deeper into a feeling of loss so massive he can’t even more from his spot on the floor with fear his legs will give out if he stands. Dozens of letters surround him. He brings his knees to his chest and drops his head on his hands. He folds into himself, the headache he’d been nursing all day slowly growing into a terrible migraine. He only has one letter left; the one she wrote before the very last. 

Ben forces himself to pick it up off the floor. He reads. And as he reads, he cries. 

_Friday, November 18th 2020_

_Dear Ben,_

_I found you._

_You were in line getting coffee and I was sitting behind you, writing. I wasn’t paying attention, but then you spoke. I would have recognized your voice in any place, any time, any life. I looked up, and there you were. Just as tall as I remembered. You looked handsome in your Barbour jacket and jeans. Your hair is shorter than it was before, but it suits you. I knew instantly that it was you, but it was your eyes that really got to me. The same deep, vulnerable eyes._

_I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t move, I was too shocked. I hoped you would look up from your phone and see me. And as if by divine intervention, you did. And that’s when my heart broke._

_Because you looked at me, but there was no recognition there. I was a stranger to you, like every other person getting coffee that day._

_I didn’t have the courage to go up to you, and then you left. I think I sat there for hours, staring at nothing, wondering why the Force decided to make me remember every detail about our life and make you forget everything. It’s not fair._

_I’m sorry to say this, but I hated you a little bit that day. How could you not remember? You promised I wouldn’t be alone. You promised, Ben._

_I’ve had a couple of days to think about it and I’ve realized it’s selfish of me to hold it against you. But it hurts, Ben. It’s like losing you all over again. My other half. My home._

_It hurts._

_Forever and always, Rey._

* * *

It comes to him in flashes. Slowly, and then all at once.

He falls asleep and dreams of darkness. Of staring up at the night sky, one devoid of any constellations he can recognize, and wishing for peace, patience, love, belonging. He dreams of his uncle attacking him with a shiny laser beam, though he looks nothing like the taciturn uncle Luke he knows. He dreams of a monstrous, disfigured creature feeding him lies and making him feel sick to his stomach. He dreams of pain, endless and uncompromising. 

Then, he dreams of her. A scavenger in a forest. In his arms. On a ship. Calling him a monster, her eyes boring into his, fierce and angry, then reaching out to him across space, across the stars, across the universe. Touching him with such careful gentleness, he’s almost afraid she’ll break when their hands brush.

He dreams of them fighting back to back and how right that felt. 

He dreams of offering her the galaxy. 

She doesn’t take his hand, but when she leaves, she takes his heart. 

It doesn’t matter. If she’s not by his side, he doesn’t want it. 

The rest is a flood of images and feelings, powerful and unrelenting. He dreams and he remembers. He remembers every decision that led him there, to the moment where everything went so wonderfully right - and then so terribly wrong. 

He remembers feeling like he wasn’t finished; like they weren’t finished. Their story had only just begun. 

He is Ben Organa Solo, and he remembers Rey. 

And then, finally, he remembers a voice that wasn’t a voice - perhaps just a feeling - telling him that it wasn’t the end. 

He wakes up with a start, rushes to his desk where his laptop is, and types _Rey_ into the search bar. He knows there’s a million in one chance of finding anybody in this day and age by their first name alone, but he’s hoping hers is uncommon enough to narrow the search. 

Predictably, there are thousands of results. He goes through the first twenty pages before giving up. On a whim, he adds his city. Even if she’s not a local, she had been here. She saw him. It seems too easy, at first, but if the Force brought them here, to this life, and was kind enough to give them a second chance, it has to mean it’s on their side. 

With sweaty palms and a rapidly beating heart, Ben tries his luck.

And then, he finds her. 

There’s an event announcement for a book signing at a bookstore downtown. She goes by Rey Johnson in this world. At twenty-three, she’s a _New York Times_ bestselling author. She writes Young Adult fantasy books. Teary-eyed and in awe, Ben laughs as he reads her profile. Rey writes books about _space_. 

_Fitting_ , he thinks. He goes through several articles about her life and achievements. She’s nothing short of a wonder, having amassed quite a following after publishing her incredibly successful series, _Galaxy Wars_. The last book in the trilogy was released a couple of months ago, and it not only topped the charts, it also broke more than a few records. 

He discovers she is currently on a book tour, which seems to be what brought her to his city. Serendipity - or destiny, or fate - at its finest. 

Lastly, he checks her official website. There are several social media handles, and Ben selects Instagram. Her latest post is a photo of her surrounded by copies of her new book. Her hair is no longer styled in the buns he so vividly remembers. It’s shorter, and it suits her. She looks beautiful. 

The caption reads: _It’s finally here! I’m so very happy to release this baby into the world. If you’ve been following me on this journey since the beginning, thank you. If you’ve just gotten here, thank you. Thank you to every single one of you! I could not have done it without everyone’s support and enthusiasm. This story is incredibly close to my heart and I have been wanting to give Kira and Kylo the ending they deserve for a really long time. They’ve done enough waiting. As for me, I’m still waiting. But I’m good at that. I hope you enjoy the conclusion to the story. I love you. Forever and always._

With his heart in his throat, Ben checks his phone. The event is due to begin in an hour. He closes his laptop and rushes into the shower. 

* * *

The bookshop is small, the kind that is family-owned and messy in a cozy way, and it’s packed with people of all ages. Even though he’s taller than average, Ben manages to keep himself hidden in the back. 

Her voice is the first thing he notices. It’s melodic and heavily accented. It dips and soars with enthusiasm as it reads the words on the page. It’s a storyteller’s voice. It’s as familiar to him as breathing. 

He risks a look, because he can’t help himself. Not when he’s this close. The sight makes him jelly-legged.

Rey is sitting on a chair in the middle of the makeshift stage, her eyes glued to the book in her hand. The other holds a microphone close to her mouth. The knot in his throat tightens. He remembers how soft those lips felt against his own. How their breaths mingled. How it was the single greatest moment of his life. It was a kiss that felt like a promise - a promise to love, a promise to stay, a promise to live. 

Death has ends. Promises don’t. 

Here's the universe making good on his promise to her. Here's their second chance. He just hopes he wasn’t too late. 

Rey’s eyes are intent on the page as she reads her story. _Their_ story. 

Ben listens and watches as she unspools a tale of love and adventure and good and evil and the delicate in-between. It’s the story of Kira and Kylo, a warrior of Light and a Knight of Darkness, who came together to save the galaxy - and through love, they saved each other. 

When she finishes the excerpt, Ben brings a hand to his face and is surprised when he finds his cheeks wet with tears. 

* * *

The queue is moving at a steady pace. Rey has been signing books for what feels like hours and her wrist is starting to pinch. She ignores it. Habit and practice make it easy for her to go through the line quickly and efficiently. 

She’s got her eyes cast downward when the next person approaches the table and places a copy of her novel in front of her.

“Hello, who should I make it out to?”

Rey opens the book to the first page, marker in hand, and halts. There’s already something written below the title.

_I’m sorry I took so long._

She looks up, confused. Standing in front of her is a tall, dark-haired man with soulful eyes that speak of promises made and promises kept, and a smile as deep and beautiful as the one he had on his face the last time she saw him, so long ago, in a different place, a different time, a different life. Eyes that _see_ her. Eyes that _know_ her. Eyes that _remember_. 

Tears form and fall, and Rey smiles back. 

“Ben.” 

**Author's Note:**

> This started as a Twitter prompt and then I fell in love with the idea and couldn't let it go. 
> 
> You can find me on Twitter & Tumblr @galacticidiots - come say hi!


End file.
